This is America.
Ohio State football players and their coaches can accept an invitation to visit the White House after a national championship win.
This is America.
Anyone who wants to (for the time being at least) can criticize those same players and coaches for going to the White House.
That last point is missed on some of the social media users clutching invisible pearls that Jonathan G. Gurian of Columbus dared to question the team’s recent visit to Washington in a letter to the editor, and that we published.
Gurian wrote in part:
“What an unfortunate and short-sighted choice that was by the national champion Buckeyes choosing to visit the White House under the current climate. That followed on the heels of the World Champion Dodgers making the same visit one week earlier.
“How do coaches and players explain to their wives and daughters that they took this opportunity to commemorate their championship while supporting the current occupant of the White House, a confessed misogynist?
“How do non-white players explain to those who stand up for racial equality that they decided to swallow pride and principle in exchange for notoriety with their perceived support of a known racist (see Unite the Right Rally, Charlottesville, Va. 08/11/17).”
It was an opinionated letter to be certain, but that is the point of a good letter to the editor.
There is nothing wrong with criticizing Gurian’s opinion on social media, as a rebuttal letter to the editor or otherwise, but there is something decidedly un-American about saying he does not have a right to express it, and the free-for-now press does not have the right to publish it.
Ohio State coach Ryan Day speaks, as U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance meet the Ohio State University 2025 College Football National Champions, at the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 14, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Critics of Buckeyes’ White House visit make valid points
This is America.
We don’t all have to agree.
This is America.
Silencing critics does not mean they were wrong. It just means you silenced them. You could be as wrong as your un-American action.
And let’s be real here, it isn’t like Gurian’s points are baseless.
Donald Trump’s history of sexual misconduct is well documented as are his comments like grabbing them by the ….
In 2023, a New York jury found Trump liable of sexual abuse and defamation against writer E. Jean Carroll.
Likewise, the president’s record with Black people isn’t clean (see “Black jobs,” Haitians eating pets in Springfield while South Africa’s Afrikaners are A-OK, and the tragic Central Park jogger case).
Opinion: Education in Ohio is being held hostage by political chaos at the worst time
The president is currently disrupting opportunities for women and people from LGBTQ, Black, brown, differently abled, white Appalachian and other communities by pushing a false narrative that whiteness is being replaced due to diversity, equity and inclusion.
The impact of the Trump administration’s tactics helped lead to the dismantling of Ohio State’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion and Center for Belonging and Social Change.
So yeah, there is a reason Gurian feels the way he feels. There are also reasons for people to disagree with his assessment. Some do, others do not.
It has nothing to do with supporting Trump or not.
Fact check: Did JD Vance graduate from Ohio State in 2 years? Did Trump win Columbus?
This is America. We can critique others’ critiques
Letter writer Michael Williamson of Fulton is no Trump supporter but does not fault the Buckeyes for visiting the White House.
“For all the people expressing shame for the Buckeyes’ visit to the White House, remember this: It is not the fault of the team that the most divisive person to ever occupy the highest office of our nation was elected,” he writes in part. “That’s an embarrassment for all the rest of us — collectively, not individually. Our national champions earned the honor of a trip to Washington despite the ham-handed, lawless, ignorant, racist fraudster that occupies the Oval Office.”
That all said, this is America.
People have a right to say people don’t have a right to criticize the Buckeyes.
And this is America.
Saying or writing something doesn’t make what you say or write correct.
Free speech shouldn’t be stomped out, or this isn’t really America anymore.
Amelia Robinson is the Columbus Dispatch opinion and community engagement editor.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: OSU players visited Trump. Denouncing it isn’t un-American | Opinion